Study Suggests Light Drinking During Pregnancy is Okay but Don’t Pop the Cork Just Yet

On the short list of things you have to give up when you get pregnant is your evening glass of wine right? Well some Danish researchers say maybe not.

For their newly released study, published in medical journal BJOG, the researchers surveyed the drinking habits of over 1,500 women and then analyzed their children’s intelligence test results.

According to the report, mothers who consumed small amounts of alcohol during the early stages of pregnancy had children with no visible signs of mental problems at age five. Even up to eight drinks per week was not associated with significant mental impairments. The kids whose moms drank nine or more drinks per week, however, were more likely to have lower attention spans.

But before you pop the wine cork, know that the research only observed the children up to the age of five. The researchers themselves warned that their findings aren’t proof that light to moderate drinking is safe for baby. “As alcohol is a known teratogen [meaning it causes birth defects], it remains the most conservative advice for women to abstain from alcohol during pregnancy,” they said in a release.

And while there has been other research suggesting light drinking may be okay during pregnancy, there are also studies that say no amount of alcohol during pregnancy is proven safe. Sounds like more research needs to be done to reach a real conclusion.

What are your thoughts on drinking while pregnant? Would you do it in moderation? Or say no way?

I say “no way!” If any bit could decrease my child’s success in life, I can wait 9 months for a sip. Plus, I was so tired when I was pregnant that a drink sounded more like a tranquilizer than a relaxation.

There are 100 ways to de-stress that do not harm your baby, including: warm bath, nice walk, meditation, reading a book, writing in a journal, talking to a friend, getting a foot-rub… none of these things pose a risk to your developing baby.

Why would you choose alcohol as a way to de-stress? Personally it would stress me out even more knowing that I could be harming my baby, whose brain develops from from beginning to end of pregnancy and can be affected by alcohol.

There’s been a lot of controversy over this the past few weeks. It’s really down to the mother in the end and how she feels about her body and baby, but like willowprincess said the only way FAS is 100% preventable is by not drinking at all.

I had the occasional sip from my other half’s glass of wine but never half or a whole glass. The best way to look at it is, would you give your newborn half a baby’s bottle of wine?…

People have been drinking alcohol while pregnant, literally since alcohol was invented. It’s our paternalistic overbearing fear society that overreacts to things like this. Rather than believing in a woman’s ability to make reasonable choices for herself based on real data, they brainwash women and scare them into to thinking a sip of acohol is going to harm the baby. When – news flash! – it won’t.

So I make a decision to drink a half glass of red wine based on my reality, how I feel, how stressed I was at work, etc. Not because of scare tactics by the medical community who are just afraid of getting sued if they say a little is okay and then something unrelated happens and the parents blame them. Sadly, red wine gives me heartburn right now.

My reasonable rules, agreed upon by my OB, that I feel are best for me AND baby:

No hard alcohol at all
No alcohol in the first trimester period
All tests had to be normal and everything going swimmingly
4oz of red wine once a week

It’s worth noting, I have high blood pressure, and stress is a factor. So I would save my weekly glass for if I had a really hard day, and then use other stress relief methods for the rest of the time.

When I dine in with the girls, I enjoy filling my martini or cocktail glass with sparkling juice or sparkling wine (non-alcohol). Crystal Light also has drink flavors like mojito, margarita, or daquiri if you don’t mind the taste of artificial sweeteners in moderation. I offer the same drinks to my pregnant friends.

I don’t miss the real thing because my baby’s needs are the most important thing to me now. I wouldn’t consume anything I wouldn’t want to feed right to my baby.

Re: the author’s comment that some studies have shown that no amount of alcohol during pregnancy is proven safe…

That’s because of the way experiments are designed. The only way to PROVE that a certain amount of alcohol is safe is to have test subjects drink carefully regulated amounts of alcohol over the course of the pregnancy, and then see at what level problems begin to occur. But since this is clearly unethical (primarily because the baby is being put at potential risk at no benefit to itself), scientists have to rely on more indirect methods, such as women self-reporting their drinking habits.

So while it’s true that no amount of alcohol is known to be safe during pregnancy, it’s also misleading to say that only total abstinence is safe.

(It’s identical to the tobacco industry’s claim that cigarettes have never been proven to cause cancer – that’s because scientists can’t ethically ask subjects to smoke cigarettes over 20 years then see what the results are, so technically, the tobacco companies are correct.)

The point: One drink won’t kill you or the baby. But better to err on the side of caution.